Smoking Around Children

WARNING: If you are a smoker, especially if you are a smoker with young children, then DO NOT read this!!! You WILL be offended - so stop right now and go read something else!!!

Okay, so here goes... why doesn't the Children's Aid take away children who live in smoke-filled homes? Ontario recently passed legislation that makes it illegal to smoke in a vehicle carrying anyone under 16. (Some people treat this as a joke, because the 15-year-old smoker can smoke in mom's car, but mom can't). Well, children may spend an hour or two in the car but they spend 18 hours in the home. Why isn't illegal to smoke in a home with children under 16 living there?

I honestly think it should be. There is enough information out there on the dangers of second-hand smoke that no one should be ignorant of what they are doing. If a parent refuses (or is unable) to provide the necessities of life - then society steps in and either supports the parent to properly care for their child, or takes the child away.

This issue may be one of the biggest "elephants in the room" that we don't talk about. But it's the children that suffer for it. Smoking outside is not that big a deal. Smoking inside - day after day, year after year - is killing your children. You wouldn't sprinkle arsenic on their cereal every morning, would you? But you don't mind sprinkling their lungs with it? Every day? While they're sleeping?

I used to smoke. I smoked in the car - with the window down - with my kids in it. I even smoked in my house - not all the time, just occasionally. (Do you see the justifications?) I say this because I understand first-hand that smoking seems to cause a subtle change in the brain that makes it easier to justify these actions. But, having come to the other side - having successfully quit this insidious drug - I have woken up to the truth. Smoking is harmful. Second-hand smoke is worse.

So let's stop pretending that we don't see this elephant. Tell your friends and family that you won't ignore it any more. Bring them booklets. Send them links. Call them up when anti-smoking commercials come on TV and tell them to watch. Harp at them until, maybe, just maybe, they finally get the message. And maybe call your local CAS if nothing else seems to work.

I am definitely sailing too close to the wind with this one - but our children are worth it.